When I first heard the story line of Pressure I thought it was lame.  Really, weather?  On D-Day?  Of all the factors that went into the largest military invasion in human history, I figured that weather and its implications was a minor one.  Well, I was wrong, and that shows my ignorance.  This subject is serious enough that a 2012 David Haig play evolved from the real facts of history, and the film essentially follows the play, which means that it sometimes alters the real history, for good (it’s a very powerful narrative) and bad (history is overly simplified and people like Sverre Petterssen are unfortunately omitted).

Anthony Maras’ film has General Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) in England, ready to trigger the Allied invasion of Normandy, France, set for June 5, 1944.  The only factor that could delay it is the weather, and Ike wants to nail that down.  His own expert predicts calm skies but the British meteorologist recommended by Winston Churchill isn’t sure at all.  James Stagg (Andrew Scott) sees trouble ahead, and tries to convince the military leaders that stormy seas could wreck their invasion plans more thoroughly than German bombs.  With the American meteorologist (Chris Messina) set in his contrary opinion it is up to Eisenhower to trust one or the other, with his decision likely to save or lose thousands of lives one way or the other.

The film admirably makes Stagg a prickly character, unsocial and overly serious, distracted by having to leave his pregnant wife alone while taking on this (for him) unwelcome duty.  Stagg’s terse, awkward and eventually hostile arguments with the overly confident Americans and the military officers chomping at the bit to go to battle add genuine spirit and drama to the story, with his own reluctance to commit one way or another a testament to the difficulties of command.  Another character, Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon), proves invaluable, both to Eisenhower (she is his aide) and to Stagg, in whom she comes to believe.  This glimpse behind-the-curtain of how such important world history came to be made is revealing and harrowing at the same time.

The invasion takes place, of course, on the day following the day it was originally planned, and several minutes of battle footage depicts the hell on Earth that the Allied forces waded into on the beaches of Normandy.  That footage puts into grim perspective the seriousness of the movie’s scenario and makes us understand that it could have been much worse had those same amphibious boats been swamped while crossing the English Channel, with so many fighting men never even reaching the coast had the invasion taken place a day earlier.  War is a harsh, terrible business; kudos to men like Stagg and Eisenhower who did as much as they could to keep as many men alive as possible during what became known as The Longest Day.  ☆ ☆ ☆.  16 June 2026.